How I went from 'My Will!' to 'Thy Will'

A Reflection on Serving God's Will, and Why We're Made for it.

An awareness of God’s will, and a sincere and earnest desire to serve that will, is a gift of infinite value!

I don’t think we usually see it that way, though. Even I didn’t fully understand that until very recently. I said in a post on StE that for most of my life, I couldn’t bring myself to say, ‘What is your will, Lord? Tell me, and I will do it!’ The closest I could get was, ‘What is your will, Lord? Tell me, and I’ll consider it.’

For most of my life, I approached God’s will like a bad swimmer afraid of deep water. If invited to swim, I’d first want to test the water and see if it was too cold, too choppy; see if it was too deep, and whether there was anything to grab onto if my swimming failed me and I started to be overcome by the water. I didn’t trust myself (still don’t!), and I didn’t truly trust what God might ask me to do.”

That only changed over the past few months, and I thank St. Joseph and St. Anthony of Padua, because their intercession helped to acquire that grace for me. Where I am today is nothing short of a small miracle.

With that in mind, I want to share a reflection with you from Psalm 143, verse 10. It’s a short little piece of the psalm, and you may be surprised just how much wisdom is in it.

Let’s start with just the first two words—

“Teach me…”

We acknowledge teachers as having both authority and power. Not “power” in the modern understanding of the word—a force of some kind—but power in the classical sense; having a potency to manifest the good outside of itself.

Teachers have authority to teach, because of their power to teach. And so and they have knowledge and wisdom to share, that can better us, if we are humble and obedient students. The first act of humility from a willing student is his presence in the classroom, in the lecture hall, or at the feet of his master in asking “Teach me…”

In the same way, by asking God to teach us we acknowledge His glory and power, as the psalmist says,

So I gaze upon you in the sanctuary to behold your power and your glory.
-Psalm 63:2

So we start in the right place by asking God to teach us. We acknowledge our lowliness—our “smallness”—before God. We tell Him, “You are the master of my being, and I come to you now so that I can learn from you, so that I might be who you intended when you created me.”

Now let’s proceed to the second part of the phrase: “…to do your will”

I see two prayers there.

First, we ask God to teach us that doing His will is important and it’s necessary to our personal excellence. We are who God created us to be when we are serving His will. Not that God created slaves, but that He created persons with particular natures. And when we live according to our unique nature, we are fulfilled—we are in our element, and we excel. “When you love your job, you never work a day in your life.” When you serve God’s will, you’re never a servant; you’re a participant. You’re exactly who you were made to be.

From St. Therèse of Lisieux:

“Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will, and being just what God wants us to be.”

But we need to be taught that. We need to understand service to God not as a favor we’re doing for Him, but as an answer to His call for us to be our truest and best self.

(Read Also: “How to Be Yourself, Truly”)

Another way of seeing “Teach me to do your will” may be more apparent, yet more mysterious. It’s a prayer that God teach us what His will for us is, and then teach us how to do it. Obvious, right? But we also have to ask Him to make us capable of doing His will. We have to ask Him to give us the grace that perfects our nature, fills in the gaps of what we lack in our persons, and elevates us above and beyond our natural limitations. These are necessary because God usually calls us to something greater than ourselves, and requiring at least a little more of us than we have to offer out of the gate.

For myself, I ask God to make me smarter than I naturally am in carrying out His will. Not that He grant me extra intelligence, but that He push me beyond the natural limitations of my mind—at least while I’m functioning as a servant in carrying out His will. He can leave me stupid again when that task is done 😂—but only until the next day, when the day’s work begins again. I ask Him to make me more diligent than I really am, more patient than I really am, and so on. Hopefully, some of those virtues stick around as I cooperate with the graces that enable them.

We have to ask God not only to tell us what He wants from us, but also to teach us how to do it—and to make us capable of doing it. God indeed does not call the qualified. We’re usually called to something bigger than we are, and we’re often inept in some way for carrying out His will. He calls us anyway. And when we say “Yes!” to His call He makes us qualified through our cooperation with Him.
(Continues below the video)

Here, the psalmist is getting personal. He doesn’t say, “...you are God,” as if simply acknowledging God’s primacy and authority (all of which woudl be true). Instead, he says, “You are my God.” It’s personal and implies unity, not just hierarchy. So when he says ‘Teach me to do your will, for you are my God” He isn’t asking his master if there’s something he can do for him. He’s saying, “Daddy, can I help?”

When we’re young, it can be the highlight of the day or week when we get to help Mom or Dad with a grown-up duty or task. This is particularly true for boys who want to help their fathers with some manly, mysterious, and grown-up project—like changing a tire or fixing something in the house. When we see that dad is focused, locked in on some important project or job, we approach him, almost cautiously and reverantly and ask “Daddy, can I help?” We get so excited and fulfilled when Dad says, “Sure you can!” Even if our role and participation is something seemingly unimportant or menial, like handing him a wrench or holding some screws, we feel so privileged to take part in our father’s work. We feel elevated because, in sharing in his work, we share in his greatness; we are united to him in a special way through our participation in our father’s work or project. When Dad announces to the rest of the family that the task is done, we brag, saying, “I helped!”

Our Heavenly Father’s work is much greater and much more important than anything our human fathers could ever do. We naturally and easily see the importance of changing a light bulb or a flat tire, but we don’t see the importance of God’s work—not truly—because it’s so much greater, more complex, and more broadly connected to other important things that are out of our scope as finite human persons. So it’s easy to lack an appreciation of the dignity and privilege of serving God’s will, whatever it might be. We need our Heavenly Father to teach us that lesson, and it’s a lesson only He can teach you, because only He knows how to get through to you—uniquely.

It is said that an angel is overjoyed to oversee even a single blade of grass if that is God’s will for him. I think the idea is based on St. Alphonsus’ thoughts on serving the will of God. But it perfectly represents what our attitude should be in the service of God’s will for us. A blade of grass is small. But if it’s God’s will that it grow, and He tasks us with helping it along, then it isn’t a small task—because it is the will of our Great God.

“When we embrace the will of God, we find all that we desire, for He desires nothing but our good.”
- St. Alphonsus Liguori

God bless you my friends.

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